Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Urist Da Vinci]

I was just testing magma mist, to determine the actual lethality in the current version and dispel myths/rumors.

Process: dwarves standing next to cave-ins over magma came into contact with cave-in dust and magma mist.
Process 2: batman spawned in arena mode, flew into "lava mist" after cave-in dust had vanished.

Results: Repeatable. Magma mist can cause the fat to melt off random body parts of creatures, producing between "Minor Melting" and "Moderate Melting". Potentially-fatal "Heavy bleeding" also ensues.

Note that cave-in dust or targeted cave-ins are more dangerous in general. The mist does enhance lethality, and can kill on its own. As shown in Process 2, the mist has a longer "hang time" in the air than the cave-in dust does. Standing in magma, even 1/7, causes heat and bleeding damage faster than magma mist does, so pure magma weapons are more lethal than mist weapons.

Note to noobs: magma mist is only formed when a cave-in happens over magma, unlike water mist that can be formed from falling water.

EDIT: changed thread title to use !!double exclamations!!

[Oliolli]

Nice work, although I must note something.

!!double exclamations!! would mean burning double exclamations, meaning !!!!!!SCIENCE!!!!!!.

[Girlinhat]

To be a true dwarf, you should use the ASCII ‼double excalamations‼  Alt+19 on numpad.

Also like to point out: Lethality isn't always the main goal.  Sometimes you want to lightly sear an invader, or just simmer a dwarf.  I've heard that dwarves without fat are mostly fireproof, so you could use magma mist to burn their fat off, and then not worry as much about firebreathing enemies (Fortress Defense comes to mind).  Or perhaps you're just sadistic and enjoy slow-cooking your goblins/kittens/nobles.

Question: Does proximity to the magma matter much?  I assume the mist does the same damage, but it lasts longer near the center than around the edges.  What's the approximate hang-time of magma mist?

[Urist Da Vinci]

Question: Does proximity to the magma matter much?  I assume the mist does the same damage, but it lasts longer near the center than around the edges.  What's the approximate hang-time of magma mist?

Tested a few times, you can see that the maximum diameter of the dust cloud is ~20-24 tiles, whereas the largest magma mist cloud I've seen is 5-7 tiles in diameter. The dust hangs peaks and vanishes at 70 ticks (7 human steps), whereas the mist takes 140-400 ticks (14-40 human steps) to vanish completely.

As a rule of thumb, I'd say "the mist hangs around for twice as long as the dust, but the mist cloud is half the width".

[Girlinhat]

Interesting, and water mist hangs for shorter than the magma mist at the same approximate distance?  When you drop a cave-in into the magma, does it cause cave-in dust on the surface level?  In other words, with a deeper magma chamber, could you only burn a target without throwing them?

[Crashmaster]

From my observations the dust and mist clouds are cubic in possible range if not form. Magma mist reaches a maximum observed height of 3 z-levels above the surface of the magma while the dust clouds can be seen to heights of 10-12 z-levels (though rarely up to 15). However the effectiveness of the shock wave drops off rapidly at about 6-7 z-levels above the surface of the magma at which height 90% of passing dwarves are unaffected.

[Jalapeņo Cheesepuffs]

Magma mist led to my first fortress having a lot of Fun and being abandoned, as seen in this thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=88286.msg2414078#msg2414078

However, I noticed that when a single wall fell into the magma pool I was building over, it created a very big cloud of mist. That is, I think it was bigger than normal (plume with diameter of 15-20 spaces from a single wall). I believe that this was caused by a build up of mist, because the when the game paused after the cave-in announcement, I noticed the lava tiles below the falling wall to be a gold color, apparently an indicator of mist build up while paused. This only occured about 5 or so z-levels down the pool, which was about 15 z-levels deep. The resulting explosion did some interesting things to my 2 (after looking over it, it may have been 3) dwarves and a cat.

TL;DR: Have you tested the effects of dropping a wall into multiple z-levels of magma, or, is my multiple z-level explosion consistant with those of a single z-level?

[timotheus]

I haven't even SEEN magma yet. I'm sure it will be a Fun experience.

[Urist Da Vinci]

TL;DR: Have you tested the effects of dropping a wall into multiple z-levels of magma, or, is my multiple z-level explosion consistant with those of a single z-level?

I did do some testing. I couldn't make a larger diameter mist or dust cloud without dropping more wall tiles from above than before. However, you can get more z-levels of mist or dust by dropping the wall from higher up.

I observed that the amount of magma mist didn't depend on how deep the pool of magma was. Dropping a 1 wide x 1 long x 5 high column into 5 deep magma created a compact, but dense, dust cloud and mist cloud, so try dropping more walls/floors.

[Malarauko]

I had one of my legendary soldiers get caught in magma mist and it burned his fat off. Now he's pretty much invincible to heat damage or burning.

[Necro910]

Use the ALT+19 character for the title. It's the proper term for ‼SCIENCE‼

[Roraborialisforealis]

Ive used a melting trap thats kinda like.......



->_________BBBBBBBB____________________
   XXXXXXXXRWWWWRXXXXXXXXXMMMMMMM

B=Bridges.
X=Soil.
R=Ramp.
W=Water.
M=MAGMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You retract the bridge, Your foes have to walk through the water. They then melt when walking over the magma warmed floors (Note. The walls and ceiling were magma heated as well, even from their diagonals.) Then I just need to put the bridge down and unforbid their stuff.

[Girlinhat]

Was this in 40d?  I don't think heat is quite so brutal now.

[sirdanilot]

So what happens if I just let my enemies walk through a magma fall? Won't magma mist be created?

[Necro910]

So what happens if I just let my enemies walk through a magma fall? Won't magma mist be created?

*facedesk*

Only water gets mist from falling.

Magma only gets mist from caveins.